Install Windows 8 Today

Happy Windows 8 Consumer Preview day! Or, rather, happy day-after-Windows-8…. you get the idea. As an astute Maximum PC reader, you’re no doubt itching to get your hands on a not-quite-final build of Windows 8 to tinker around with.

But here’s the problem: You like using your current operating system. In fact, you probably have a great number of files, applications, and games all intertwined with your current operating system. And the absolute last thing you want to do – aside from learning how to use the Metro UI (we kid, we kid) – is back up everything within your operating system, wipe your drive, and introduce a fresh-faced Windows 8 into your life as your primary OS. Just think of all the application reinstallations you’ll have to go through! (Ninite is your friend, but we digress)

Luckily, you have two awesome options when it comes to testing out Windows 8 without mucking up your primary Windows installation, settings, files, or any of that. You can split your current hard drive storage setup to create an extra, blank partition – Windows 8 goes there. Or, if you just want to monkey around in a self-contained environment within your current operating system, you can install Windows 8 onto a virtual PC.

Which do you pick? It’s entirely up to you. A dedicated installation on a new partition gives Windows 8 the full attention of your system’s mighty resources. The downside? You’ll have to suffer through the boot menu every time you load your PC; You won’t be able to access your true “primary” operating system from Windows 8; Any changes (or issues) you create are permanent, as you don’t really get a chance to “roll back” that which you’ve done.

Virtualization, on the other hand, costs you system resources and overall speed – it can be a real hog – but it allows you to marry Windows 8 to your existing operating system. Transferring files is easy; Jumping between the two operating systems is easier; You can test out apps in Windows 8 and still be able to use them in your existing OS if things go sour; And, most importantly, you can quickly revert back to prior versions of the OS and easily delete your virtual Windows 8 once you’re done toying around.

That’s a super-quick overview of some of the pros and cons of dual-booting versus virtualization. Here’s how you do both:

Dual-Booting

Grab the Windows 8 Consumer Preview setup file and give ‘er a run. While your version of the operating system downloads (32-bit or 64-bit, depending on what the setup program picks for your PC), go check your available hard drive space in Windows explorer. You’ll need to have at least 16 free gigabytes for a 32-bit installation of Windows 8 or 20 free gigabytes for a 64-bit installation.

Once finished, Windows will prompt you to install Windows 8 by giving you three options to pick from: “Install Now,” “Install on another partition,” and “Install later.” Pick option number two (partition), and the subsequent screen will ask you how you want to go about creating the installation media you’ll need to use.

While we always recommend that you let Windows 8 create an installation vehicle out of a USB key when possible (it’s just so speedy), your success in getting this approach to actually install Windows 8 entirely depends on just how well your motherboard supports USB-based installations. In other words, it might not work for you: We’ve previously run into problems when plugging our flash drives into USB 3.0 slots to perform the installation, so avoid that if you find yourself hitting your head against the wall when trying to install Windows 8 using a USB drive.

The Windows Consumer Preview setup program will automatically format your key and slap the necessary files on it. As this process chugs along, fire up your control panel (Windows 7 users) and click on the Administrative Tools icon. From there, double-click on “Computer Management,” and then select the “Disk Management” option on the left-hand sidebar. Roll up your shirtsleeves: It’s time to partition your hard drive.

Everyone’s hard drive setup can vary, so we’ll just walk you through the basics of splitting a single drive partition into two. Right-click on the graphical storage “chunk” that’s home to your primary NTFS volume (C:) and select “Shrink Volume.” Input just how much you want to shave off your primary operating system’s partition – remember, 1,024 megabytes equals one gigabyte -- and hit the “Shrink” button.

What do you get? A new chunk of black, unallocated space to the right of your once-larger primary partition. Right-click on this empty space and select “New Simple Volume.” The prompts are fairly self-explanatory after this point – just make sure to give your new partition a recognizable name and format it as an NTFS partition. Voila. You’re ready to install Windows 8.

Once the Windows Consumer Preview setup program has finished with your USB key, restart your computer. As it reboots, watch your boot sequence for any prompts related to “booting” or “boot order” – in our case, we only have to hit the F12 key to access a “select where you want to boot from” menu. But since your motherboard is surely different, this option might be mapped to another key. Or, worse, you might have to go into your BIOS settings and change the order of how your system boots off of its various devices. Again, this setting is found in different places on different motherboards, so you’re on your own for this small – but critical – step.

Select the correct option – USB HDD, in our case – reboot your computer, and the official Windows 8 installation program should automatically fire up. Click on the “Install Now” button, enter you product key (that you received way back when creating your USB Windows 8 installer), accept Microsoft’s license terms, and select the option for a “Custom” installation. Pick the partition you previously created (hence the importance of giving it a good and noteworthy name), click on “Next,” and go make yourself a pleasant beverage while you wait for the installer to work its magic.

From there, it’s all downhill: Windows 8 will reboot your system a few times before the installation finishes, and it’ll then ask you a series of questions to help you personalize your operating system prior to the first official run – including asking you to log into your official Microsoft account, if you so choose. One last tip, however: When you go to reboot your system to actually load Windows 8 for the first time, take out your USB key during your motherboard’s boot sequence. If not, and if you set your system to always boot off any available USB devices before your hard drive, you’ll find yourself continually looping back to the Windows 8 installation program. That’s just silly.

Comments

Downloaded today to my Quad Core Toshiba laptop... Easy install, only took about 30 minutes to install and runs fine.... but the UI really is bad. It's too..... simple... Tablet/Phone oriented. This will make it nice for something like the Dell / HP all in one deals.... but seriously.... for a real desktop, this really is bad. This will not be used on my gaming machine. Why can't Microsoft fix their file system, and place it into a fairly good OS .

there's nothing wrong with NTFS just a lot of legacy compatability bullcrap in the shell and file maangement utiltiies preventing us from fully utilizing all of NTFS' amazing features with making highly-customized images of Win Server or being Windows-native developers

...and if you want a new filesystem designed ground-up for 4K-sector-native or flash and other future or virtualized storage that scales better than any other general-purpose filesystem in existence then you'll want Windows Server 8's ReFS (presumably SP2 for 2008 R2 will get it also)

Hmmm I'd rather stay in the past if making things simple for people, is the way of the future. People need to expand their knowledge and skills. I don't know about you, but playing battlefield 3, Batman Gothem City, Call of Duty on a touchscreen would be a pain in the a$$. Let alone getting a good game going and all of a sudden you "touch" your monitor off the back of your desk!
I am far from the past... I tend to stay ahead of the curve in my technology. I am the person that says "32gb of Ram? That's not enough!" It would be if programmers did a better job on coding... but this is not the topic.

@Kisofmyg0t: I haven't used W8 yet, and will try it out over the weekend, but it looks to me like W8 is built to emphasize touch interfaces. Touch is great for a smartphone, but I always feel like I am 'prodding' my computer, and there is absolutely a lack of fine-tuned accuracy with touch interfaces when compared to mice.

Re: the past and the future. FYI, the touchscreen has been around just about as long as the mouse. The mouse is the dominant technology for desktops because it works better than touch for almost any application or game. Just because the brainless masses have a hard time using a mouse with two buttons doesn't mean touch is the future.

Another good way to install multiple OSes is to use the boot loader built into your motherboard (if it has one).
Disconnect all drives except for the one you want to install the OS onto.
Install the OS, shut down, reconnect your drives.
Restart and everything should work as it always has if you connected your drives back to the same SATA ports they used to be on.
Restart again and press F8 (for ASUS motherboards it's F8 but it's different for other motherboards so check the manual)
This will give you a list of all your mounted drives.
Choose the one you installed Win8 on or whichever one you want to boot from.

This way you don't ever touch the MBR of your drives and you don't have to mess with boot loaders.

ok i still say they need a way other then task manager to turn the apps off if i leave a game i want it closed not suspended. also need the apps to run in a window instead of having to take up the whole screen. if you're marketing for tablets and desktops then don't take away the ability to play a game (a.k.a. solitaire) and watch videos at the same time without needing 2 monitors.

Actually, if you open solitaire, switch back to desktop, then highlight the app on the left of your screen, you can tell it to snap left or snap right (I'm sure there is a keystroke for this, I just don't know it). On my computer it then takes up about 1/4 of the screen, leaving your desktop as the rest. You can then open a video player for your desktop and watch a movie.

I am actually posting this while watching a movie with solitaire open on the left side of my screen.

It is just a little bit different way of accomplishing the same thing we been used to doing all along.

To close an app move your mouse to the top left of your screen then go down with the mouse to expand the list. Right click and close the app. As for solitaire, that game was designed to be played in metro so that really depends on the devs. You can Alt + Tab and WinLogo + Tab to switch out of that (but of course you know that).

If you want pictures and videos to not be displayed in the app you have to right click the file and select what program you want to open the file (windows picture viewer and windows media player).

it could be because I'm using virtual box but there is no expanding menu in the top left only the icon to go to desktop appear i did find that grabbing the screen towards top right and dragging down will let me close but i can't minimize the metro solitaire game.

I was Win8 hater , after installing this version I kind of like it. It's like they combine Xbox 360 and PC. I don't like the swipe screen where you have to pull up the screen to get to login screen . It makes sense in tablet or phone just to prevent accidental button press but not in a PC. Yea , and it takes time to get used to it. It found all drivers except scanner. Reader App is neat and gives you ability to read pdf . I've installed Chrome and Steam , both working fine. Later i'm gonna try to install productivity stuff Autocad, Mastercam etc.

W8 took me a little while to figure out how everything works. If you have a tablet it's great and even if you're running it on a media center PC with a mini wireless keyboard it is intuitive to navigate the new start menu. It's definitely functional for a desktop user once you figure out how everything works. To be honest I was ready to completely dismiss W8 until I got use to it. Sorry to say it but I agree with Victek. If people don't give metro a chance it's going to flop big time. MS better include a user friendly movie like in XP that explains the basics in 2 minutes or less.

All-in-all it's not bad but definitely not worth it to upgrade if you have W7.

What's messed up with my install is graphics. Can't get my switchable AMD graphics card to work, and something is messing up OpenGL with integrated. I've tried the new AMD Catalyst drivers for Windows 8, but it didn't work. Anyone else got it working?

Installing Windows 8 CP is the easy part. The hard part is figuring out how to drive a UI that is optimized for a touch screen device on a desktop PC controlled with a mouse and keyboard. If you're in the minority currently using Windows phones the Metro interface on Windows 8 may make sense, but the great majority of people using XP/Vista/7 are going to feel lost with the Metro UI on the desktop. One reason people have successfully migrated from XP to Vista to 7 is a relatively shallow learning curve - they all have a similar Start Menu, etc. Metro is a radical departure. Time will tell, but I think this is going to be rejected.

I certainly reject it, and generally I like Windows. Windows 7 is pretty good. Windows 8 is just a total POS, WORSE THAN VISTA, which will fail dramatically. Don't expect me to upgrade to it anytime soon. I'll wait for Windows 9 instead. (and if that fails, maybe I'll switch to Ubuntu or something...)

You're having so much trouble over a new start menu. How often do you actually use the start menu? Or maybe the pointy corners on the windows are too much to handle? Get used to typing into the menu to search, uninstall the preinstalled metro apps, and you're good.

I think you're on safe ground with rejected. Take a look at Microsoft's success (or lack thereof) with "new" and "fresh" concepts, (MS Bob, anyone?), and you'll see that they suck at it. Badly.

If this were gesture-based with a camera a la Kinect, it might -- MIGHT -- work. But as a mouse-based interface, it's just plain ugh. You'd think they would have learned the folly of trying to appeal to those lowest common denominator focus groups after the Office 2007 ribbon bar fiasco, but apparently there's always a fresh idiot with new and dumber ideas coming up the chain over in Redmond.

Maybe now that Jobs is tits-up, his anti-gaming zealotry will gradually filter out of the Apple ethos and I'll have a viable option for an alternate gaming OS in a few years time. I still remember the days when Apple dominated the computer gaming market; some of my fondest gaming memories come from that era, before Jobs made the company "serious" and hippified it. Thumbs crossed!

Macs as a gaming OS? Ugh, I doubt it'll ever happen. Plus, the OS is still only officially available by buying Apple-branded PCs, and is thus hella more expensive than buying from a vendor like Dell or HP, or simply building your own. Jobs's death will "fix" nothing in Apple. They're already too far gone.

And while W8 has a crappy Metro UI, it's supposed to be optional, and of course 3rd party programs will likely spring up to fix that type of error. Some other 'innovations' in W8 (though of course nix systems have had them for a LONG time now) are a step in the right direction, though far too immature.

Most likely, W8 will turn out to be another Vista. Just wait for W9 to get rid of the crap and improve on the actually useful new features.